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The August 5 North Kingstown Town Council (NKTC) meeting was relatively straight-forward, with two particularly significant actions. The following notes were submitted by NKTC Larry Mendel and he acknowledges that others may interpret things differently.
First, Council voted unanimously to approve the proposal by the Fire and Police Chiefs to place a bond, on the November ballot, for funding new police and fire stations. The fire station would be located where the current station is on Post Road; the police station, which would include the Fire Department’s management offices as well as the emergency dispatch center, would be located in the Quonset Industrial Park. (The town does not currently own the property at Quonset, but would expect to swap land it does own — for the land used for the new station.)
The purpose of building new stations is to overcome major deficiencies: insufficient space, leaking roofs and walls, holding cells that lack running water, mold, crumbling infrastructure, etc. Tours of the current facilities available upon request; seeing is believing. The bond would be for $60 million, and that is for greatly reduced buildings; the original proposal was for much larger facilities but was scaled down due to cost concerns. For each proposed station, though, expansion plans would be part of the design in case, down the road, more space is needed as technology and staffing needs change.
Council also voted to approve placing, on the November ballot, a bond request for $137 million for a new middle school on the site of the current Wickford Middle School, and to sell two pieces of town-owned land.
The other major decision was to designate Good Energy, an energy amalgamator, as the default electricity provider for town residents. Residents will be able to easily opt-out of the service and select a different provider, including Rhode Island Energy, but the amalgamator offers the likelihood of somewhat reduced rates along with a higher mix of renewable energy. Residents and Councilors alike expressed concern that there is little regulation of Good Energy, whose past history demonstrates only minor savings to the customer, but concluded that this expands consumer choice and hopefully will increase competition in the future. The next step is for Good Energy to seek approval from the Public Utilities Commission, a process that normally takes several months.
In other actions, we voted to accept a state grant of nearly $190,000 for LEARN365RI.
Town Manager Ralph Mollis reported that Revolution Wind’s offshore wind farm pile driving has been completed early, but the project at the town parking lot off Brown Street has been delayed somewhat by the presence of unexpected underwater rock formations.
Mollis also mentioned recent activities in the town, including the Wickford Art Festival and July 4 fireworks, the completion of many paving projects, renovation of Wilson and McGinn Park Courts, installation of water bottle fillers throughout the town, record sales of beach passes, the ADA improvements at our town beach, record setting use at our local golf course and Allen Harbor, the successful 350th anniversary events, and the mailing of tax bills calling for no tax increases.
It has been a busy time.
As always, video of the entire meeting is available on the town’s website.
And my next office hours will be held in September. I hope everyone has a chance to get some good relaxation time this summer.
Larry Mandel
Town Councilor
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